Starting Freelance Photography
Make Your Photography Pay
David Bigwood, LRPS
Published by Bigwoodpublishing.com at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 David Bigwood
Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes
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A recently made image that has possibilities for use in a calendar
About the Author
David Bigwood is a regularly published writer and photographer with his work having been used in well over fifty publications, mainly in Australia and the United Kingdom.
He is a Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society and a member of the Australian Society of Authors.
For three years he was a columnist on freelancing for the UK magazine F2 Freelance and Digital. He writes regularly for Australian Photography and has written for Australian Camera and Better Photography.
He founded and edited The Black and White Enthusiast (later Silvershotz) and was one time editor of the Journal of the Australian Photography Society.
He has images with Alamy, the on-line photography library.
Eastern Grey Kangaroos. An image that is a best-selling postcard and has been used in a calendar and to illustrate an article. It also hangs in private collections in Australia and Canada.
Table of Contents
Black and white still has a market. This image has been used on a poster with the
caption, ‘Where is he?’.
It’s a Business
Whether you want to make your photography a full-time occupation or just want to sell a few pictures to cover some of the constant expenses that photography incurs, let’s be absolutely clear on one thing, freelance stock photography is a business and needs to be treated as such.
Having said that, just how realistic is it that you can make your photography pay?
I will not insult your intelligence by suggesting that there are thousands of editors out there just waiting for your contributions and willing to pay you a fortune. But, I will say that how you succeed depends very much on just how you approach the marketing of your images. A haphazard approach is likely to produce a haphazard result while a concentrated, businesslike approach is likely to bring a happy outcome.
That is, of course, assuming that you can produce quality pictures that are well composed, correctly exposed, sharp where they are supposed to be and the sort of pictures that the buyer is looking for.
Photography has never been the cheapest of hobbies and at times it seems that it swallows cash like a baleen whale gulps down krill. So, when many years ago I found a book by Louis Peek, one of the leading freelance photographers of the day, called Cash from your Camera, I pounced upon it.
By following his advice I began sending black and white 10x8 prints to a variety of magazines and, to my delight, began making sales. And, while the cheques were nice, I found that the most excitement was seeing my work in print — something that still gives me a thrill today.
Maybe you are looking for some return on your photography and would like to try freelancing but before you do, be warned. Freelancing has never been easy and unless you are the exception to the norm and have photographs that editors are desperate to use and pay you lots of money for, it is hard work, it is frustrating, it is time-consuming, but, if you get a kick out of seeing something that you created in print knowing that an editor is prepared to pay you for using it, then it is addictive.
It is also a business and needs proper records kept to show what images you have sent where and, of course, details of your income and expenditure for tax reasons.
I hope that this book, based on years of experience trying to succeed in this most exciting yet frustrating business, will enable you to experience the thrill of seeing your work in print knowing that somebody thought it worth paying for.
An early sale of mine to a magazine for early childhood workers in the UK. Sent out on spec as a 10x8 print.
Your Equipment
If you are already producing images that can be reproduced to A4 size then your equipment doesn’t need to be changed. However, if your current camera restricts what you can take — some compacts produce good pictures but are not so good when it comes to action because of the delay between the shutter release being pressed and the shutter actually opening — you may like to consider upgrading to a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) with a minimum of 8 megapixels. This will enable you to make a variety of images with a number of lenses and produce images that will print quite happily up to larger than A3 and be suitable for most uses that they are likely to be put.